Shortest Post Ever

Nice night, hanging with fellow woodworkers in Covington on the eave of Woodworking in America.

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On Workbenches Part I The Lesson of the Schwarz

As woodworkers we all have benches. Some are just a sheet of 3/4" plywood on saw horses and others are full blown hand made Roubo shrines. Until we come up with at least the most basic bench (just a horizontal work surface) were really of very little use as a woodworker.

Thats my current bench, under all those routers.

My current bench is a factory made Whiteside that I picked up on Craigslist for $150.00 a few years ago. It is a basic Nordic style bench, about 24” wide by 60” long and has two (2) mediocre vises. Mediocre is in fact the best choice to describe the whole bench.While it is what I have and it usually gets the job done, it is certainly not what I want. What I want is a mutant with the ancestry of Roubo, the bones of modern materials and an eye towards the 21st century.

But before I go too far into describing my own bench design philosophy I would be remiss if I failed to first bring up Christopher Schwarz, for he is certainly the current authority on workbench design & construction on the interwebs & the greater woodworking community as a whole.As many of us have, Ive been influenced by Chris rabid consumption and propagation of all things workbench. While he has so far failed to convert me to total Roubo adoration, I think there is more actionable workbench advise being put out by Chris than any other source we have access to today.Beyond a general workbench philosophy, Ive taken from Chris two (2) main points. The second is a direct result of the first.Point #1: The workbench is a 3 dimensional clamping surface. Its job is to hold a work piece still so that any number of woodworking tasks can be accomplished without the piece moving.

An out of proportion hand drawn cross section
of the bench design Im working on.

Point #2: The legs must be flush with edge of the top. Without this feature youre left with a 2 dimensional clamping surface, or put another choice, you have 2/3 of a workbench.

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A Good Thing But Not The Next Best

The next best thing to attending Woodworking in America if you cant? Hardly.

Ill say it here, it is now very likely that I will miss WIA 2011. Im still hoping to go, but forces well beyond my control (also known as life) are conspiring against me. I cant complain though, because I was able to stop in breifly for WIA 2009 & and I kicked it with the cool kids all wekend long at WIA 2010.

Ill have my homework in tomorrow, Mr. Schwarz.

For anyone who hasnt been lucky enough to attend, dont let this blog post from Popular Woodworking fool you. The hand tool techniques you pick up at WIA are great, yes. And these are great DVDs to suppliment the instruction. But they are not what make the weekend great. Neither is the market place filled with its tool porn and fantastic deals.

Ahh! Woodworkers everywhere!

What makes Woodworking in America the MUST ATTEND Woodworking event of the year are the WOODWORKERS!

Marcs as entertaining in person.

The highlight of the 2 hours I spent at WIA 2009 was my meeting Tom Iovino. What made WIA 2010 one of the best weekends Ive ever had was meeting and hanging out with not just Tom, but Kyle Barton, Rob Bois, Nik Brown, Matt Gradwohl, Kari Hultman, Adam King, Allen Lindsey, Ian Mackay, Aaron Marshall, Mike Morton, Marc Spagnuolo, Steve Taylor and Matt Vanderlist (a many, many others).

Youll leave any woodworking event with great friends.

If you can’t make it to WIA, be sure to make it to a local woodworking event and meet you’re fellow woodworkers. They’re a great bunch. You’ll be glad you did.

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On Workbenches Part II The Clockwork Bench

So how do I plant to incorporate the lessons Ive learned from the Schwarz into my own Clockwork Workbench? They form the foundation of my approach. My bench will be a 3D clamping surface with legs flush with the edge. That is where I leave the purity of Roubo.

Bob Langs 21st Century Workbench

In terms of overall shape & form, Im basing my Clockwork Bench off of Robert Langs 21st Century Workbench. From his design Im changing the leg assembly the most, using trapped panels in addition to stretchers. This is designed to simplify the joinery, reduce the ability of the bench to rack and add mass.

Megans "Gluebo" LVL Bench.

Though the trail I’m following has been blazed by Megan Fitzpatricks LVL bench, materials are where my bench will be least conventional. At least half of the top will be of LVL construction. The second half of the top may be LVL too, or it may be Timberstrand (dimensional lumber made of OSB). My legs and stretchers will be Timberstrand, with each front-to-back leg pair housing a double panel composed of one layer each 3/4" OSB & 3/4"plywood MDF.

One of my stretcher panel assemblies, just prior to glue up.

It sounds like quite the bastard, I know. Yet Im looking forward to building and using it. I am optimistic (perhaps naively so) that it will be my penultimate workbench.Does your workbench rest on a foundation of bench philosophy or did you just find a flat surface and get to work?

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Monitoring the Finish

I’m lucky enough to have two (2) big (23” inch, I think) monitors at work. Since I got them, I’ve been looking to mount them to the wall and win back the desk space (I’ll never understand why flat panel monitors or TVs are left on their bases). By getting them off the desk I can slide the laptop dock under the primary monitor. That will let me set up my secondary printer where the laptop dock used to sit. The second monitor can now be hung above the phone, getting it closer to the first for a more seamless view between them.

My desk before the monitor wall mounting began.

I began by measuring the clearance I’d need for the laptop and determining where and at what height I’d like the monitors. Then of course I took their bases off and set them aside.

Laying out the mounting holes in the board.

As the wall is a steel framed, ½” gypsum wall typical of modern light commercial construction I was not comfortable mounting the monitor arms directly to the gypsum. Since I’m locating them relative to my chair and not the wall framing, I chose to mount a wooden board to the wall first. The board can be fastened to two (2) studs and the monitor arms can be mounted to the board, independent of the stud locations. Before I installed the board, I carefully layed out and pre-drilled all of the fastener holes.

We have board mounting!

Once the board was attached to the wall studs, it was a simple matter of attached the monitor arms in the pre-drilled holes, attaching the monitors to the arms and plugging everything back in.

Everything mounted and plugged in, the first time.

Unfortunately, I realized at that point that I had installed the to edge of the board at the height I had wanted the top edge of the monitor (the board is centered on the monitor height). That’s what I get for working in my office at 1:00 am.

The eye level view when the monitors were originally mounted.

A few minutes later I had taken it all apart, re-mounted the board lower, and re-assembled everything. This time the height seems dead on. I’ll move my laptop dock and confirm that it fits another day when it’s not the middle of the night. I’ll make another board to install above the original and hide the fastener holes from my first, aborted installation.

The second, correct height, mounting.

Why regal you, my dear woodworking readers, with the tale of mounting of my monitors to the wall in my office? Because that board I used to mount the monitor arms that I can now barely see behind the monitors was my finishing experiment. I used The Wood Whisperer’s Simple Varnish Finish method to finish it, and the finish came out excellent. I’ll be folding the monitors out of the choice to show the board off to my coworkers.

The beautiful mounting board, soon to be buried behind monitors.

If you’re nervous about finishing, you need to check Marc out. Between the Simple Varnish Finish DVD, the Finishing: It Aint’ Over Till It’s Over book and the abundant finishing advice he shares in his podcasts, he is a wealth of actionable finishing advice. You owe it to yourself to check him out.How are you finishing that project of yours?

The full photo album

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Its Wanderful Part 5

Finally, the sanding was done and it was time for finish. Given the shape of the wands, I made a drying rack for them before beginning the finish. The rack is made of two pieces of .040 aluminum which were bent into an L shape in order to hold the wand on the 40 mil thick end of the aluminum sheets.

My impromptu finishing station set up on my Dust Deputy.

On advice from The Wood Whisperer I used Charles Neil’s Blotch Control (luckily I was able to order it before his store went on summer hiatus). It seems to have worked well (no blotches in the final finish) but did raise the grain considerable. I sanded after the first coat of Blotch Control with 320 grit and after the second with 600 grit.

Between the coats of Blotch Control application.

Next came the dye. I used two (2) coats of General Finishes Water Based Dye Stain in Merlot for the business end of the wands. I applied the dye using a foam brush and rubbed it in and off with a cotton rag. For the handles I started with two (2) coats of General Finishes Water Based Dye Stain in Ebony. As the tone lacked the depth I was looking for, I added India Ink to the dye for the third coat. This added depth, though if I was to do it again I would be much more liberal in my adding of India Ink to the dye. I was given the India Ink advice on Twitter, and I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember who recommended it, so whoever you are, thank you.

Merlot on the business ends.

Ebony on the Handles.

Once the dying was done, I finally moved on to finish. In order to finish the wands I applied 12 coats of 1 lb shellac. The shellac was applied with a foam brush in a manner similar to the dye. The first 5 coats were done using amber shellac, hoping that the amber color would add a richness of tone. When it didn’t, I switched to a 1 lb cut of clear shellac I already had mixed up rather than mix a new cut of amber shellac for the final 7 coats.

Eyeing down the wands, mid-shellacing.

The rapid dry time of shellac allowed me to apply all 12 coats in less than 5 days. Once the final coat had dried for 12 hours, I buffed it out with synthetic steel wool and wands were complete. They were apparently the hit of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II screening that my family went to on the opening Friday night.

The finished wands, ready for the movies.

Over the following weekend my Sister-in-Law even told me how much she liked the wand, and all she needed now was a wand stand. Work on the stands began the following week.

Its Wanderful: Part 1

Its Wanderful: Part 2

Its Wanderful: Part 3

Its Wanderful: Part 4

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